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The Middle East has often been characterized as a regional system without a regional hegemon. Although several Arab and non-Arab states have aspired to regional hegemony over the decades, none have succeeded. Instead, the structure of the regional system has constituted an important stimulus for the emergence of regional middle powers. The traditional contenders for regional leadership at the core of the Arab system—Egypt, Syria, and Iraq—are further domestically weakened and unable to play a leading, let alone independent, regional role.

This chapter examines the South China Sea (SCS) dispute from the point of view of South Korea. It argues that while South Korea is far from the immediate region under analysis and in which tensions continue to rise, the implications of rivalry between China, the United States, and other SCS claimant and non-claimant states have dangerous consequences on the peace and order of the broader area. It also illustrates South Korea's position as a regional middle power interested in balanced and constructive policies with the ultimate aim of de-escalating tension between those states that have brought all others closer to physical conflict. The chapter elaborates how the problems of the SCS have a wider destabilizing effect upon East Asian maritime security, posing strategic issues for other regional states, such as South Korea. It characterizes the SCS situation as a “grey zone” conflict or as “hybrid competition” between the parties involved.

The behavior of regional middle powers generates useful challenges to, and avenues for, developing conceptual and theoretical understandings of middle power behavior generally. Owing to its origins, the concept of “middle power” has hitherto demarcated states that are neither great nor weak in their size, economic capability and military power. However, an examination of Middle East regional rivalries questions this definition and reveals that regional influence can be exerted by actors that vary in size and capabilities. Additionally, I find that although some actors possess middle power attributes, they choose to refrain from transforming this potential into real power.

Middle powers rise at times of instability in the international or regional orders. Two sets of middle powers, namely the traditional and the so-called “emerging” middle powers, came to being during and after the Cold War, respectively. On the one hand, traditional middle powers, such as Australia and Canada, emerged during the Cold War. On the other hand, emerging middle powers ascended after the Cold War, and are not the traditional “good citizens” but controversial reformists with independent foreign policy portfolios, and they are becoming increasingly vocal in world affairs.

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Turkey's involvement and handling of intertwined conflicts in the 1990s. The analysis reveals that Turkey's political and strategic status seems to be solid, and suggests that the country's leadership should be complimented for avoiding becoming embroiled in the conflicts around it. The chapter also analyses the prospects for Turkey in the twenty-first century and comments on its depiction in the media as a rising Middle Eastern power, emerging regional superpower and multi-regional power.

The concept of and approaches to “middlepowerhood” have been key to explaining the identity, behavior, and foreign policy roles of many states (such as the United Kingdom, France, Australia, or Brazil) in the international system. However, with the exception of a few studies, this literature has failed to examine cases from the Middle East, despite the theoretical and empirical potential that regional dynamics offer for such an examination. Only a few studies have utilized the concept to understand or explain the behavior of regional actors. This volume addresses this major gap, by offering several contributions that interrogate the conceptual, theoretical and empirical underpinnings of the concept of “middle power” or “middlepowerhood” by examining several cases from the Middle East region. The volume raises several core questions. Namely, what is a middle power, and what does it mean to be a middle power in the Middle East? What drives middle power behavior? Is it the identity, material attributes or position of a state in regional and international orders? Should we focus on the behavior or attributes of states to determine whether they fit the category of middlepowerhood? Empirically, why do some regional actors aspire to be middle powers, while others refrain from doing so? What induces or constrains the behavior of middle powers?

This chapter analyzes a selection of mediation and conflict-prevention initiatives promoted by Middle Eastern middle powers since the 1980s. It begins by noting that behavioral approaches to middle power status consider systematic engagement in mediation and conflict prevention as one of the key traits of “middlepowerness,” and reflects on how the literature on middle power mediation and norm-based international behavior can be applied specifically to the Middle East. It then turns to the analysis of three case studies of norm-based mediation or conflict resolution initiatives promoted by three Middle Eastern middle powers—Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt—since the 1980s.

This chapter examines Algeria’s foreign policy from the perspective of the concept of “middlepowermanship.” As a middle power, Algeria has adopted many roles to protect its national interests and the preservation of its regime. The main argument in this chapter is that Algeria was destined to be a middle power, but for reasons that will be elucidated, policymakers have refrained from advancing the state as a middle power with the potential of being a regional hegemon in the Maghreb-Sahel region. Thus, the objective is to highlight the lingering difficulty in adequately classifying Algeria’s foreign policy and to understand why such a major country is unwilling to play a regional and international role concomitant with its military and economic capacities.

Malaysia’s relations with the United States and China are examined in the context of a changing balance of power scenario in Asia and Southeast Asia. China’s rise and U.S. “rebalancing” to the region as well as overlapping claims in the South China Sea are issues faced by Malaysia at the same time it is engaged in an era of increased trade and economic growth in the region. Malaysia’s posture and policy is to steer away from being embroiled in the Sino-U.S. rivalry, even as it continues to engage with both in “strategic partnerships.” As Malaysia is an ASEAN state of stature, with claims in the South China Sea, its position is to seek a peaceful solution with China and its ASEAN partners, and it will avoid any military conflagration.

In this chapter we argue that, in the Indo-Pacific region since the ‘end’ of the ‘old’ Cold War, there has been a process of political and economic competition among regional great powers for influence over Indo-Pacific core middle powers. One of the essential aims of this process is to create a regional middle power coalition in opposition to either China or the US, one of the elements of the new Cold War. As a result, the foreign policies of US-co-opted states will exhibit a shift in emphasis towards support for the US pivot and an expression of a greater foreign policy interest than heretofore in the Indo-Pacific region, following the US. The result is that an Indo-Pacific self-identification and an ‘Indo-Pacific narrative’ become important components of the foreign policy rhetoric and debate of US-co-opted states.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has faced a number of serious challenges to its geopolitical position in the Persian Gulf regional security complex. Having long relied upon the United States as a guarantor of its security, recent friction between Washington and Riyadh, coupled with what appeared to be a burgeoning rapprochement between the US and Iran, has caused policymakers in Riyadh to reconsider Saudi foreign policy behavior.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is described by some pundits as a “middle power,” or as an influential regional player, without whose cooperation not many Gulf and Middle Eastern problems can be satisfactorily addressed. The republic has achieved a level of power and resource capability to be able to impact geopolitical developments within its region and beyond, in support of what it regards as its national interests. The country’s economic and hard and soft power, along with its size, geographical position, culture, and riches drawn from oil and gas, are taken into account in this respect. It is therefore able to affect events, positively or negatively, in its neighborhood, and to deal with major powers from a bargaining position at bilateral and multilateral levels.

Chapter 10 opens up the international dimension to consider the wider implications of this sphere to the possible meanings, sources, and iterations of leadership provision. Moving away from the focus on individual and state-centred leaders, the analysis first assesses the different dimensions and problematic issues of the international sector before moving on to consider a selection from the variety of contextualized leaderships in this sphere. These types include leadership sourced from a global hegemon (e.g. United States); international organizations (e.g. UN); global governance groupings (e.g. G20); non-state advocacy organizations (e.g. NGOs); and ‘middle power’ brokers (e.g. Norway). It is contended that the international dimension can disclose important insights into alternative conceptions and constructions of the leadership role in contemporary situations.

This chapter assesses whether and how India is developing into a rising power in the Persian Gulf. Dionysis Markakis approaches India’s reconnection with the region in terms of ‘middle power theory’ and disaggregates the dominant economic, sociocultural, and military drivers of Indian policies in the Persian Gulf. Markakis suggests that India is still attempting to carve out its niche in the international system and that multiple factors lie behind its reticence to engage proactively in regional and world affairs. These include the strong element of multilateral alignment that runs through Indian foreign policy as well as domestic institutional weaknesses within the structure of Indian government itself. For Markakis, a primary challenge for Indian policymakers is how to outline a more proactive, rather than reactive, approach to foreign policy and the conception and exercise of power.

This chapter explores how two middle powers, Sweden and Australia, deploy the politics of protection in different ways. Sweden’s efforts to remake the state is viewed through a gender lens as part of efforts to disentangle its former neutral profile through more robust military applications, whilst embodying a peaceful self-narrative linked to military non-alignment, active internationalism and a ‘feminist foreign policy’. The second case explores efforts to reclaim a bounded concept of the sovereign state in Australia's masculinist and militarized approach to securing its borders with respect to asylum seekers. Australia seeks to reclaim a more traditional imagining of the state, or a return to ‘restoring’ state sovereignty perceived to be under threat by globalising forces. Both case studies explore the inherently gendered and securitized reworking and revisioning of the state, and the tensions and contradictions that emerge in questions of security, sovereignty and identity.

In this final chapter, we contend that despite the fact that differing constructions of the Indo-Pacific occur across matrices of space, time, and selected world-view methodologies, it is important to conclude that not all constructions and geopolitical imaginations are equal. Consequently, we prioritize the ongoing relationships between the US and China: these will largely determine the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region in the twenty-first century and beyond. Also, we end the book on a constructive note, exploring a regional institutional model which is the closest we have yet experienced in terms of being representative of Indo-Pacific nation-states, from the western Indian Ocean, to the western periphery of the Pacific. The case of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, now over twenty years since its inception, is an exemplar (however imperfect) of the maritime regional organization wrestling with the daily realities of what it is to operate in a new Indo-Pacific world.

This chapter examines the role of middle-power diplomacy to promote R2P, examining actions to prevent pending atrocities in Libya as a case study. The Australian government assumed a very proactive and leading role in promoting forcible action by the international community into Libya, and the chapter provides a powerful case study of how states use their political agency to promote the international civilian protection agenda. While the actions of the Australian government were contested, they serve as an example of creative diplomacy that facilitated the inclusion of a robust civilian protection mandate within Security Council Resolution 1973 which authorized forcible intervention into Libya and the first unanimous referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC). It also shows the interconnections between R2P as a justification for state diplomatic posturing, and the unique engagement of international POCs and criminal justice frameworks in the formation of the response to the Libyan crisis.